Team newspaper talks about the Golden Globes: Dembele should be wary of the issue of scattered votes, Vinicius is the lesson of the past

July 3rd News On August 7, the list of 30 candidates for the Golden Balls will be officially announced, and Paris Saint-Germain winger Dembele is the favorite to win the award. The "League" believes that Dembele should be wary of the issue of scattered votes, and Vinicius failed to win the award last year for such reasons.

Over the years, players in the Champions League have always accounted for a large proportion of the Golden Ball candidates. For example, in 2024, 6 players from Real Madrid were selected into the top ten; in 2023, 6 players from Manchester City were selected into the top nine (Gundogan transferred to Barcelona in the summer).

There are no heavyweight events like the World Cup and the European Cup this year, and the impact of the Club World Cup is difficult to measure. Paris Saint-Germain won the biggest ever record in the Champions League final with a 5-0 victory, which makes them likely to have more than six players on the nomination list.

By then, the issue of vote dispersion among Paris Saint-Germain players will be the focus again, which may affect Dembele's chances of winning the Golden Ball. In 2024, Vinicius lost to Rodri due to the scattered votes. Although the former won the Champions League with three Real Madrid teammates, the latter eventually won by a narrow margin.

In fact, there will always be more players selected for clubs or national teams that win important championships, and scattered votes are inevitable. However, this impact is sometimes not obvious. For example, in 2022, Courtois, Vinicius and Modric won even a third of the votes that Benzema had; in 2021, Lewandowski lost to Messi despite no other Bayern entering the top 30. Similarly, the view that Griezmann was considered to be damaged by the scattered votes in 2018 was not entirely true, because the sum of votes between Griezmann and Mbappe almost equals Modric's score, while Varane ranks further. That year, Real Madrid had 8 players selected, but Modric won the Golden Ball Award in the end.

Therefore, having multiple players selected by Paris Saint-Germain is not necessarily unfavorable to Dembele. However, Paris Saint-Germain did not seek more support for Dembele, and Real Madrid and Barcelona were more experienced in this regard. This year, Real Madrid has put more efforts into Mbappe's competition for the Golden Ball.

Paris Saint-Germain's other favorites include Ashraf, Donnarumma and Vitinia, who all have the potential to make the top ten. However, Dembele still has several Club World Cup games to improve his performance.